Akita Neru

Akita Neru is an officially recognized derivative, she is acknowledged by Crypton Future Media, the publisher of the Character Vocal Series for Vocaloid 2, for commercial use. Her name is a play on words, Akita (亞北) is taken from "飽きた" or "get bored" while Neru (ネル) from "寝る" or "go to bed". Neru is regarded as a "BOUKALOID" (in Japanese, 防火ロイド or 防火LOID) - a play on words. It literally means Fireproof-loid and has the same pronunciation as Vocaloid in Japanese.

Design
Neru's design is similar to that of Hatsune Miku, a Vocaloid 2 developed and distributed by Crypton Future Media. She has blond hair consisting of an odd length of short and long, the long hair is styled into a left side-ponytail held by a blue futuristic ribbon. This does not need to physically touch Neru's hair to keep it in place. She has a stray hair at the top of her head and nose length bangs, her eyebrows are thick and her eyes are tsurime (upward-pointing) eyelids/eyelashes. On her left upper arm is the red mark "DEN2", its significance is currently unexplained, however there is a controversial theory due to the involvement of a supposedly-powerful entity, and this matter was asked not to be expounded for the safety of Neru's creator.

Her top is grey in color and sleeveless with a yellow hem, below her yellow necktie is a triangular cut that shows her navel and the back has two circular holes. The rest of her attire is black with yellow trim. She wears detached sleeves, a pleated skirt with bike shorts and thigh boots. On her left thigh is a garter purse that holds a yellow clamshell cellphone which is presumed to be a Motorola V3X.

Personality
Neru came to represent the tsundere culture of Vocaloid. The fandom displays her personality mainly as hostile but she is also known to be displayed in a more friendlier manner, such as having a crush on Kagamine Len, who is another Vocaloid 2 by Crypton. Other aspects of Neru is being a representation of a forum/bbs troll, a Miku wannabe, and a anti-hero of the Vocaloid personage.

A popular portrayal of her actions is that she's always seen texting on her cellphone or slacking about. According to the creator, she has a dislike for Otaku. Despite Neru being a girl that does things her way, she is employed in a writing agency for a rate of 700 yen per hour. She sometimes she speaks in Tohoku dialect or Akita dialect. People speaking in such dialects are located in the Tohoku region. This is a reference to her family name Akita, and the prefecture's name.

Biography
The exact origins of Neru vary and within the fandom this has caused some confusion. However, there has been a consistency with names and phrases despite different retellings. This section will list three of the most notable sources.

Source: Vocaloid Wiki
On October 14 of 2007, when the Hatsune Miku movement was on the rise beyond expectations, a Japanese TV station suddenly broadcasted a program that stereotyped Miku users as "anime freaks without stable work experience". Three days later, Miku's pictures became unsearchable on main search engines such as Google and Yahoo! Japan, and in the following two days, Miku's article was deleted from the Japanese Wikipedia.

These news became widespread or "flamed up (炎上した)" on 2ch bulletin boards with the rumor that an advertising agency which had a strong influence in the Japanese music industry was behind the series of "anti-Miku negative campaign," in an attempt to purge Miku and indie musicians from the music trend. Then, numerous comments were posted that denied the rumor, or "put off the fire (消火する)," followed by the phrases "飽きた、寝る. (Got bored. Going to bed.)" or "寝る、お前らも寝ろよ.  (Gonna go to bed. Follow me, y'all!). Yet those comments drew nothing but negative responses from 2ch netizens. The contributors of such posts were branded as "puppets of the agency". The netizens joked about the "puppets" and made a spoof character for these posts as "Akita Neru". Later Smith Hioka, a designer, finalized the concept art of Neru. She came to represent the tsundere culture of Vocaloid.

Google and Yahoo! Japan announced that the search failure was a technical problem and had nothing to do with the advertising agency or the TV program. The Wikipedia page removal was the result of copyright violation, which also had no relation to the agency. Still, the rumor about the "Miku-hating agency" persists within the Japanese fandom presently.

On April 1 2008, Crypton adopted Neru as an official derivative character of Hatsune Miku. This, along with other derivatives such as: Hachune Miku, Yowane Haku, Sakine Meiko, and Tako Luka.

Source: Vocaloid Otaku
[[File:Image Akita Neru bySmithHioka-img2.jpg|thumb|left|220px| Akita Neru complains about Otaku

Left 1 - Huh? I don't get you! Are you some disgusting otaku?

Left 2 - Geeze, I'm tired of this!!

Right - Anyway, you're just a bunch of disgusting otaku making a fuss. Ahh, so gross, so gross.

Phone - Pi pi pip

Profile Age - 17

Height - 150cm

Weight - 38kg

Genre of Specialty - Forum posting in place of some customers, Astroturfing

Boards of Specialty - News Bulletins+, News Bulletins, News for VIP

Regular Patrons - Den 2u, TεS and ggrUks. These two companies were once assumed to be insulting Hatsune Miku.

ggrUks = ggrks = "google it, you scum" ]]

On October 18, 2007, an Internet BBS website reported Hatsune Miku was suspected to be victim of censorship by Google and Yahoo!, since images of Miku did not show up on the image searches. Google and Yahoo denied any censorship on their part, blaming the missing images on a bug that does not only affect "Hatsune Miku" but other search keywords as well. Both companies expressed a willingness to fix the problem as soon as possible. Images of Miku were relisted on Yahoo on October 19. (from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid#Hatsune_Miku )

In addition, some scandals that insulted Vocaloid occurred in October, 2007.

At this time, 2ch BBS was thrown into a great uproar. A rumor that it was string-pulling by the advertising agency (Dentsu Co.) which failed in the promotion of the virtual idol in the past spread. The comments which tried to quiet this uproar were posted many to 2ch by certain persons in this time. They posted many comments which insulted Vocaloid and Vocaloid fans.

When an angry fan chased the sending origin of these persons, it was recognized that their comments were made by cell phones. In addition, from another follow-up survey, it was recognized that it was an act by a famous string-pulling company.

It is Akita Neru that the person of this problem was made to be a Moe character. She works as a part timer performing string-pulling with a cell phone.

(The first picture of Akita Neru by Smith Hioka) http://neru.cdx.jp/neru.jpg

Source: Danbooru Wiki
 Notice: Danbooru is an image gallery known to host explicit imagery, the following link should lead to safe content, the text here is copied verbatim and the ref links are merely for crediting the source.

Akita Neru (亞北ネル) in phonetic reading it sounds like "I Quit. Going to sleep." (Aa, kita. Neru) She started out as a meme on 2channel, where a troll user started thread crapping all Vocaloid related threads. Some user commented that he wouldn't get angry only if the troll was a cute girl.

Thus Akita Neru, a tsundere non-Vocaloid net-chara was born. Her image color is orange-ish yellow and her character item is a cell phone. Her design was created by Smith Hioka (スミス･ヒオカ).

Neru is sometimes written as a Miku wannabe, others as the anti-hero of the Vocaloid personage. She mainly represents forum/bbs trolls, those who don't have enough patience to use the Vocaloid software, or those who gave up using Vocaloid.

Voice portrayals
Neru officially has no defined voice, however this has not prevented users from attempting to give her one. In some cases Neru has the voice of a boyish-sounding girl, while some people have assigned her to Miku's default voice, but in a higher octave. Although people use the higher pitched voices as a representation of Neru, her voice has been portrayed in Project Diva 2nd as being a lowered version of Miku. Another suggestion also uses Rin. This was first used in Nanamue-P's Honey Honey PV, Neru has a singing voice that better matches her aesthetics.

The examples of configuration on the Fanloid wikia should not be viewed as being widely accepted.

Relationships

 * Based on the information by the creator, it appears Neru's target of disgust is otaku and those who like moe character types.


 * In a similar creation on the same official level (and from the same circumstances that led to her creation) is her "brother" Akita Nero.


 * The fandom views her relationship with Hatsune Miku as being that of a friendly rivalry and a bit of jealousy. It is a similar when it comes to Kagamine Rin, however, it is Rin's closeness with Len that agitates Neru; this results in fanon based shipping with Kagamine Len. Neru is portrayed as having a crush on him and is seen blushing in his presence. When it comes to Yowane Haku she is considered an acquaintance, this is due to both characters not often being seen interacting with one another yet acknowledged for their popularity as derivatives.

Appearances

 * MikuMikuDance (MMD), 3D software
 * An MMD model of Neru was created in October 2008 by modeler M2 (M2gzb) who used Animasa's Miku as the base. See the Neru Akita (M2) page for details, and also see other Neru models.


 * Maker Hikōshiki Hatsune Mix, manga
 * Neru makes a cameo appearance as a music teacher (ch6), then she later appears again as a salesperson (ch7).


 * Chibi Miku-san, 4-koma manga
 * A popular 4-koma that portrays Neru in child form, she is introduced (#54) as a smug and sometimes abrasive friend of Chibi-Miku, Chibi-Neru can sometimes be seen trying to one-up some of the characters. The fandom idea of her having a crush on Len carries over in this series.


 * Project Diva (PD), game
 * Neru is an available character in the PSP game, Hatsune Miku ~Project Diva~ and again as a playable character in its sequel. Her appearance in the first Project Diva game did not carry her "official" personality, and was as cheerful as Miku. This was corrected in Project Diva 2nd, complete with tantrum-throwing if the player has not chosen her for a long time.


 * Fanmade Promotional Videos (PV)
 * Neru, Miku, and Kasane Teto are a commonly seen in fanmade videos. Fans have dubbed them the Triple Baka, after the popular song of the same name.


 * Merchandise
 * Official licensed Neru figurines have been produced, such as Nendoroid Puchi and a 1/8 scale model.


 * Artwork
 * Search Akita Neru on deviantArt Pixiv Piapro


 * Media
 * Search Akita Neru on YouTube NicoVideo

Trivia

 * Like Miku, Neru's futuristic ribbon is also one of the most difficult parts of Neru's outfit to recreate for cosplayers.
 * While uninformed fans may brand Neru's contempt against otakus as harsh and cruel, there is a real-life reason to this. In Japan, otakus are real obsessive people that goes beyond norms in celebrating their admiration for a particular character, anime series, or even idol singers. Unlike overseas otakus, they have been known to go beyond extremes, and in reported cases in Japan, are capable of commiting crimes.
 * In Japan, otakus are typically illustrated as fat grown-up men with backpacks and an unhealthy obsession for a particular (often moe) franchise or series.
 * In contrast, overseas otakus simply are fans of tv shows, seiyuus or anime from Japan, and are more civil in comparison.

Gallery
Note; this is not a gallery for every fanart out there, just for reference